Writer’s Roundtable: One Island, One Album

Brought up in discussions this past week, we phased ourselves with the question: If you were stuck on a deserted island, what would be the one album you would take with you?

Easier asked than answered was the revelation found by AWM, but after much thought, four brave writers have voiced their opinions on the one album they would want to have with them if they were deserted on an island.

Midnight Marauders, A Tribe Called Quest

When AWM first proposed this writer’s roundtable, I knew right away that if I was ever stuck on a deserted island the one album I would bring is Midnight Marauders by A Tribe Called Quest. This insanely easy decision became much more difficult to write, when just a few days later Malik “Phife Dawg” Taylor passed away at the age of 42. Midnight Marauders, the hip-hop trio’s third full-length studio album, was released on Nov. 9, 1993 and debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Hip-Hop/R&B charts. Now, some of you may be wondering, why did he pick Marauders? Why not Low End Theory or People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm? For me, it has always been one of those albums you can listen to a thousand times, know every word to every song, and still never get tired of hearing Laurel Dann say, “Keep bouncing.”